Dr. Caligari, a demonic doctor and murderer, untouchable by the arm of the law, is traced by his antagonist, whom he has robbed of both friend and lover, to a mental hospital where he lives as its director. The vengeful young antagonist uncovers the keeper of madmen as a madman himself. And then all these events, reproduced as the youth's story, finally reveal themselves to be the fantasies of an equally sick mind.

Robert Wiene was a film director of the German silent cinema. Robert Wiene was born in Breslau. In 1908 he started to act, at first in small parts on stage. His first involvement with film was in 1912, writing and (possibly) directing Die Waffen der Jugend. His most memorable feature films are the horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Raskolnikow (1923), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, both of which had a deep influence on the German cinema of that time.